Moroccan Man in Terrorist Cell With 9/11 Hijackers Goes Free

Feb. 8, 2006 — -- Germany's Supreme Court has decreed that Mounir el Motassadeq be released from a German prison because appeals are still pending. Motassadeq, 31, was convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell that included three of the 9/11 suicide hijackers.

The decision by Germany's highest court came late Tuesday, adding yet another chapter to a serpentine legal case that dates back to Sept. 11, 2001.

Motassadeq was the first 9/11 suspect to be convicted in connection with the suicide hijackings.

In early 2003, he was found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization that included suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, and of being an accessory to murder.

The court said he had supported the plotters by helping pay tuition and other bills for cell members so they could live as students while they planned the attacks.

He was convicted on all charges and was given the maximum sentence in Germany: 15 years in prison.

Motassadeq appealed. Acknowledging that he was close to the members of the Hamburg cell, he also insisted that he knew nothing of their terror plans. He had also admitted going to an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

The verdict eventually was overturned by Germany's Supreme Court in 2004, and a retrial was ordered.

In August 2004, the court ruled there was no proof that Motassadeq had known about the plot and jailed him instead for membership of a terrorist group. The accessory to murder charges were dropped. He was sentenced to seven years in jail, and judges ordered him to return to custody pending his appeal.

He was immediately arrested in the courtroom and put back in prison, where he had spent nearly three years between his arrest and his release in April 2004, and had been jailed again since his conviction last August.

Motassadeq appealed again.

The German Supreme Court agreed with Motassadeq's complaint that the judges had been wrong to order him to return to custody pending his appeal.